This Blog is a part of my media social experiment. Comments, suggestions and questions are welcome (vv.free.physics@gmail.com). For the specific lists of posts use links on the right. For consulting services of Education Advancement Professionals visit www.GoMars.xyz. Thank you for visiting, Dr. Valentin Voroshilov.

Assistant
to Director of an Institute; Director of
Department of computerization and information technologies; Director of
Center
for Development of City School system; member or a team, leader of a
group of consultants for schools and school districts (initiation,
implementation, growth,
support, assessment, audit of innovations in education).

(III) Learning

graduated from schools with high GPA; participated in
a wide range of extracurricular activities; developed personal approach to
teaching (flipped the classroom before the approach was described in
publications); published papers on various aspects of advancing education;
converted publications into PhD theses and then found an adviser; moved to a
country without knowing the language; learned the language; learned how to
teach using foreign language; started publishing in foreign language.

I
am an "investigative blogger". I insert myself into a situation I study
and then I expose all BS I found there (BTW: BS means "beyond
sense-making). I
am not an idiot or a reckless person. The reason I can allow myself
writing what I think, even if that is perpendicular to commonly adopted
and conventional views, is that my financial situation is sufficient and
stable. Of course, as a normal person, I wouldn't mind making more money, or being involved in more interesting projects (as described in my generic resume). But I do not have to pretend to be someone I'm not to make my living. I am aware of the fact that my chance to find many professionals with similar views is slim. The demand for "professional correctness" is taken to such an extreme that it has become a demand for personal conformity.
I believe in telling truth. Truth is facts. Facts are science. Facts
can be upsetting or encouraging, but facts cannot be offensive.
I also know (and fine with that) that the chance that my writing will
have a significant effect is negligible. But the butterfly effect exists, so the chance is not exactly zero.

P.S. A large portion of my ideas come to me while I am in traffic or in a
swimming pool. During the day there is not often much of a time to formalize them
in a fashionable way. This blog is the best I can do. Well, so far - let's wait for retirement.

“In 1898, a Russian schoolteacher, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935),
proposed the idea of space exploration by rocket. In a report he
published in 1903, Tsiolkovsky suggested the use of liquid propellants
for rockets in order to achieve greater range. Tsiolkovsky stated that
the speed and range of a rocket were limited only by the exhaust
velocity of escaping gases. For his ideas, careful research, and great
vision, Tsiolkovsky has been called the father of modern astronautics.”"

(this post originally was published a week after the election day, but before Senator Sanders said: “It wasn't that Donald Trump won the election, it was that the Democratic Party lost the election” - then I decided to re-post it.)

The
designer of the Bolshevik coup Vladimir Lenin studied the French
Revolution (among many other studies) and wrote books on the matter.
Then he successfully used his theory to design and to organize the coup.

Those
books have been available in many languages for about a century. In
different countries, many Marxists extremists used them successfully to
take over a power. The theory works like a clock! But only under certain
conditions (like any scientific theory). To win a power takeover
organizers have to ride a wave of a deep populace disappointment and to
direct it into actions (hopefully, just a massive voting turnout). That
deep populace disappointment happens when the social establishment
concentrates all energy on an internal power struggle and loses touch
with the needs and feelings of common folks.

All
mob revolutions had been based on a frustration masses felt due to
economic downturns in the countries. People felt tricked, lied upon,
neglected, exploited and powerless. As the result, they embraced leaders
with strong rhetoric and simple solutions. “The system is rigged, those
… (rich, Jews, intelligent, foreign powers, immigrants, …) are our
enemies, we have to destroy them, demolish the system, and start from
scratch”. “The International” (the hymn of Socialists and later
Communists of the 19th and 20th centuries) has these words:

The
latter line describes the typical emotion of people who have been
feeling frustration for a long time. When negative emotions have been
brewing for a long time, eventually logic just gets shot off. People
just don’t care anymore about current social structures and what to
crash them. It is like a movie detective who has to let go a criminal
and in frustration brakes his beloved coffee mug against a wall.

If
Clinton’s people read the books and knew the theory, they would be on
guard and would be able to develop the right strategy to curb Trump’s
enthusiasm.

But
that exactly is the problem. Neither Clinton nor her team were able to
step outside of a circle of traditional views on politics.

2.
All those pundits, political scientists, sociologists, media analytics
professionals, think tank members, pollsters, etc. have to admit that
they have no idea how to access populace mood and how to predict
populace behavior in extraordinary social circumstances. The current
school of polling has completely failed.

One
of many pollsters said today on a radio: “Clinton’s numbers were within
the margin of error”. Another one said: “Evidently, many of those who
did not show any indication to vote, voted for Trump.”

If
the “margin of error” included the losing scenario, did you warn your
client? Did you even know that the losing scenario was within the
“margin of error”? Did you consider a scenario with a large percentage
of hidden voters? Did your polls show a possibility of the last-minute
voters? Did you even try to assess how many last-minute voters might
exist? Questions can – and should – go on and on.

Right
after Trump’s nomination it has become extremely clear that this
election is far from regular, the social landscape is highly abnormal.
It should have become self-evident (like it has now) that current
technologies of social predictions work only for regular social events
and cannot help with analyzing this race. Instead of asking "Who will
you vote for?", right questions would be "What do you talk about when
you are in a bar with your friends?", "What are your fears?", "Describe
the leader you want to see in the WH?", etc. The problem is that no one
from social-analytical establishment – on both sides – really saw how
distorted the social landscape was, hence no one tried to developed
methods which could capture those hidden abnormalities and
irregularities. Well, now they have four years to figure it out.

3. For the Democrats this loss is the result of “a failure of imagination”. November 8 2016 is Democrats’ 9/11.

Number
1 reason for this loss is the arrogance of the Democratic
establishment. They saw how Trump just broke the establishment of the
Republicans, but they didn’t believe that this could happen to them,
they didn’t even consider this option (instead of thinking “I know I am
right” they should have asked a question “What if I am wrong?”). That is
why they didn’t try to listen to Trump supporters, didn’t really try to
understand their motives, just dismissed them as “deplorables”. If they
did, maybe they would see that in addition to “deplorables” there was –
and still is – (a) a layer of people who felt tired of hard living and
just wanted to feel for once as a winner (sport team psychology); (b) a
layer of people who felt ignored and wanted to feel relevant (teenager
psychology); (c) a layer of people who did not want to be pushed to vote
for Hillary merely because “Trump is bad” (rebellious psychology: you
want me to do this – here is the opposite!).

Currently I am an Independent.

During
the Primaries, I voted Democratic. I was walking to the voting booth
ready to vote for Hillary. I loved Bernie Sanders, but I knew he had no
chance to get the nomination. And in the last second with a pen in my
hand I changed my mind and voted for him. Yesterday I voted for Hillary.
But I am sure that lots of people just could not force themselves to
vote for her. We will discuss soon why couldn’t they do it. But the fact
of the matter is that no one in the democratic camp even thought of
this possibility and hence no one even tried to work with it.

Arrogance
results in rejecting any ideas which do not belong to an established
set of views. That is why Hillary’s team has been using the same old
playbook used by Obama. I do not watch news on a regular basis. Lately,
when I did – randomly and sporadically – I saw Trump and crowds of
people speaking out, or I saw Hillary on a stage with celebrities. If
you see these images again and again you get an impression of who is
with people and who is above. But Hillary’s team did not try to dig into
a psychology of undecided voters. They just kept pushing the “bad
Trump” agenda.

We
– humans – love our independence, we do not like to be forced into
something to do, even if that is for our own benefit (ever tried to make
your kid to eat green stuff?). We want to be convinced, not forced. We
do want to feel as a winner. If we feel frustrated for a long time our
logic just gets shot off. We react like a movie detective who has to
free a criminal and brakes his beloved coffee mug against a wall. We
just stop caring about consequences of our actions. We just want to
break something to feel just a little bit better, do something
unexpected, out of order – to feel power again. And this part of human
psychology is very well known. However, even when the polls showed a big
and sudden (!) drop for Hillary, which was a clear indicator of
something unexpected, her team did not try anything from the outside of
the playbook they used.

You cannot treat unexpected using methods established for well expected cases.

Arrogance
results in surrounding yourself only with people with whom you feel
yourself comfortable, which means, talking only to people who confirm
your views. During my Russia days, I watched Putin’s closest advisers
expressing views almost opposite to the boss’s. Maybe it was just a
play, but maybe it was a deliberate politics. What I see around me now
is a strong motivation to avoid any disagreement. No one wants to have
any discussion if there is a chance to be criticized. Everyone wants to
talk only to people with whom one feels comfortable. Conformism within
Democratic establishment is the real reason of “a failure of
imagination”. But the same conformism has taken place in all social
establishment strata, including government, science, education. People
within the same circle do not argue with each other, do not criticize
each other – that would mean for them that they do not belong to the
same circle. The only arguing these days, or years, is happening between
opposing camps.

This
division is clear when you watch or read news media. Different media
outlets have very different audiences, which do not talk to each other.
For more than a year late show hosts laughed at Trump, mocked him and
his supporters, but for the last couple of months they’ve been
communicating to the same group of people, who made their mind a long
time ago (hence, didn’t help to grow the number of Hillary’s voters).
These hosts also mocked Hillary, but for her singing, or dancing, or
dressing. No one mocked her for not trying to step out of her circle and
to reach out to people with unorthodox ideas.

Because no one wants to hear unorthodox ideas.

Because that would require unorthodox thinking (a.k.a. thinking).

Much easier to rely on names.

If a big fish establishment name says or writes something – we publish or promote it.

The
result is – The Boston Globe (just as an example) has not published any
interesting view, any unexpected opinion, any unusual examination,
because who would read something extraordinary (a.k.a. outside of
ordinary), if the most of the readers represent that establishment which
representatives got published in The Boston Globe?

4.
Republican establishment did not see a large stratum of people who
brought Trump to the win. Democratic establishment did not see the same
stratum of people who could bring Hillary to the win. That stratum is
not composed of the obvious Trump supporters, who truly believe in his
ability to build the wall, who hate minorities, LGBT, and abortions.

A
typical representative of this “hidden” social stratum said on a radio,
that her brother is a gay, in her school they have and love many people
from minorities and immigrants. Why did she vote for Trump? Because she
felt ignored. Establishment was busy solving their own problems and
simple folks got neglected, left on their own.

The meaning of this is simple:

(A) If I vote for Trump it does not mean I am a bigot or hate immigrants.

(B) My vote for Trump is me screaming – I’m hurting and I want to be noticed!

The
first statement represents a form of a psychological escape tactic – by
doing this (voting for Trump) I do not do anything immoral.

The
second statement is the expressions of fears and feeling of being
trapped and helpless. Those fears come from many sources, like dying
local economy, stagnated wages, rising cost of leaving, seeing other
social forces growing up in power (yes –immigrants taking jobs,
minorities whose life matters). Hence – revolt against the current
status quo; the current system does not work, we need to break it.

Vladimir
Lenin wrote books and successfully used his theory to organize and to
win the Bolshevik coup of 1917. I doubt that Trump’s or Hillary’s teams
read those books (which is another sign of being conventional). But
Trump was following his gut feeling, replaced his team three times
searching for people with similar gut feeling, and who, like him, were
able to think outside of the ordinary set of ideas (for good of for
bad). Hillary relied on people using the same old strategy, which was
her own strategy.

Arrogance
of Hillary Clinton pushed her to enter the race. Then her arrogance
made her say: “We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than
we thought”. This is just silly (at the minimum). We all have clearly
seen the big division in the country. Hillary did it, too. But she hoped
that this division would be in her favor. That did not happen.

Arrogance of the Democratic establishment led to nominating the worst possible candidate.

Party
culture led to that no other valid candidate, including Biden (!),
risked to challenge Hillary’s party rank. Only one outsider stepped in,
but due to arrogance of the party apparatus he was outmaneuvered. And
even with all this arrogance Hillary still had a chance to win, if she
and her team would be able to step outside of the playbook they used for
the campaign. Instead they just have been running ahead like horses
with blinders (in this case a narrow-sightedness is worse than a
short-sightedness; hope this explains the picture – this how

I see today’s Democratic party).

5. Whose fault is it? What do we do now? (Two beloved Russian unanswered questions)

Previous parts of this piece answered the first question.

The answer to the second one comes automatically.

Everyone who cares about the future has to become an active Democrat.

Has to participate in all local party events.

Has to vote out all current selected party officials and replace them with new ones.

Remember the lady on a radio who voted because she felt ignored and neglected?

I
bet she has not been voting for a long time, she did not go to
primaries or local elections. She did not want to participate in routine
social activities, did not want to read various analytical articles and
to participate in lengthy discussions. All she and many others want is
having “a strong and fair king” who would make all important decisions
to make their life better but without making them to participate.

Well, everyone who cares about the future needs to do just the opposite.

That
lady also represents “whites without college degrees” who brought Trump
to a victory. She does not see the big disconnect in her own logic.
Yes, she personally is not a bigot and does not hate immigrants. But she
elected a person who on his own just incapable of being a good
political manager (yes – this statement is based on personal view of
“political management” and facts about Trump). Hence, like it has
happened in the history of mankind many times before, he will be an
object of constant manipulation. He will not be managing the country,
but his circle of influence will (among so many historic examples, check
this one about Grigori Rasputin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Rasputin).

But
to see that, one needs to know a history, and to know basics of
political management, and just management, and just be able to derive
relatively long logical conclusions, and act upon facts and reason
instead of upon emotions.

All these skills come from good education.

All these skills come only from good education.

This is why the 2016 Presidential elections has been a testament of the U.S. educational system.

This
is why the number one goal for all activists across the country should
be fighting for making education great! (not again, though, because so
far it has not been great, so – just great).

President asks Devil – can I make a call,
I am curious how are my people living without me?

Devil allowed.

President talked for 5 minutes and asked –
how much from me?

$5000 says Devil.

Done.

Businessman asks – can I call, want to know
how is my business doing?

OK.

Businessmen finished in just 2 minutes and
asked – how much?

$5000000!

OK.

Done.

A teacher says – can I call, too?

He talked for 8 hours – about the school, how
are the students, who gets what grades, what happened on the staff meeting,
about lessons, showcases, awards, textbooks, school appliances, school
accreditation, quizzes, exams, tests, portfolio, …

Finally, he was done and asked Devil –
how much from me?

Free – said the Devil – zero.

President and Businessman screamed –
why????!!!!

Well, said Devil: from Hell to Hell – within the same network –
no charge.

Monday, September 2, 2019

Please,
note; this is a copy of an old
web-page and the data has not been updated for years, but the links to the
copies of my student evaluations are current (please, leave a comment if you
find a broken link).

The full 100 % description of my professional experience and achievements is here.

_____________________________

I’m
an open society proponent.

I
firmly believe that every teacher/instructor/faculty should teach under an
impression that everyone can see live
what is happening in his or her classroom (that is why I support the “Open Classroom”
Initiative). I also believe that every teacher should do what I do
on this page, i.e. make his or her evaluation public (tried to start such a
club but so far failed 😥, maybe the club will be more successful - posting job interviews, here is mine).

According
to the website, currently (September 1st, 2015) out of hundreds of my former
students only 24 left some feedback (although the page shows only 20 –
something is wrong with the way the site operates):

If
you study evaluations students give to their professors, you find that some
professors consistently get low scores, some professors consistently get high
scores, but some professors (including me) consistently get opposite scores.
That is why I am always open to my students about my evaluations (an example is in this video
).

Unfortunately,
due to technical issues the sound is not very good, so below is a partial
transcript of the soundtrack._____

These
are the actual quotes from some evaluations from the past.

“Good
pace”. “Too fast”.

“Funny”.
“Boring”.

I
do not know who wrote it, it was anonymous, but those are actual quotes.

…

“You
can tell he wants his students to understand and do well”.

“Never
felt like he cared for his students”.

Two
people was watching the same person saying same words, doing same things, and
had absolute opposite perception of that.

What
does it tell us?

…

The
lesson is, that for some of you I am a good match, and for some – not.

_____

This link https://youtu.be/FOwIowGKTKk
points at the video of the first lecture of a semester, where I spend
first part of the lecture on explaining to students my approach to
teaching and grading.I
always tell students, there are no ideal teachers, and there is no ideal way of
learning or teaching. Different people learn differently; different teachers
teach differently, and – like you may not like a movie or a dish your friends like
– you also may not like an instructor other people find likable. But if,
anyway, you are interested in what my BU students had recently said about me, click
here for example form 2012, click here (2013) or here (2014); this
is the statistics from another university where I also teach a class.

I
have not been keeping the files of all my evaluations, but I keep adding the
one I have.